Who is Gary Johnson and Why is the GOP So Mad at Him?

I had the opportunity to see Gary Johnson speak for the first time this past Monday at a campaign event at the University of Colorado Boulder. I was completely blown away by the crowd, which was beyond standing room only. It was so packed people were sitting in the aisles and they had to turn people away. I was very impressed by what the former Government of New Mexico had to say as well as his down to earth demeanor. Here are a couple of photos from the event.

While we are on the topic, I read a great article on Mr. Johnson from Time titled: Who Is Gary Johnson? And Why Is the GOP So Mad at Him? Here are some of my favorite excerpts:

Johnson isn’t one of those incapable, extremist, wacky, millionaire third-party candidates. He is extremist: he wants to abolish the IRS, legalize marijuana and allow the private sector to create competing currencies.Sure, he’s a little wacky: he’s finished 75 triathlons, climbed Mount Everest eight weeks after breaking his leg in a skiing accident and crashed while paragliding. And yeah, he’s a millionaire: in 1999 he got $10 million for a handyman business he started his junior year of college and built into a 1,000-employee construction firm.

But he’s capable. As a Republican, he won two terms as governor of New Mexico with no prior political experience, eliminating the deficit and creating a surplus before leaving office in 2003 with high approval ratings—which he recovered after dipping 30 points when he talked about drug legalization. “Ron Paul is a social conservative,” he says. “I’m not. Ron Paul would talk about legalizing marijuana, but he’s never smoked marijuana.”

His running mate, Jim Gray, a former California Superior Court judge whom Johnson met at a drug-legalization conference, says Johnson often seems to lack ego. “He said to me, ‘If, during the campaign, you have different ideas than I do, feel free to say that publicly.’”

3 Comments

I to would vote for Gary Johnson. But the reality is we are about to get Romney or Obama. To my way of thinking our system of free enterprise has never encountered a foe the likes of Obama. The question is how do we get a good libertarian candatae to the final contest ? I am afraid that Obama Hates the very system which has made America
( up until the second half of the twentieth century ) the envy of the world. I fear he intends on destroying our founding fathers principals of limited government from the inside out. If Obama gets his way the damage to our country my be unreversable.

I like Johnson and wanted him to get a shot in the repub debates but he got frozen out for reasons obscure to me. I know that Karl Denninger has shown several ways that Johnson has fallen way short of what he could be, especially a terrible statement that the banksters didn’t commit a ton of crimes. Some libertarians almost refuse to admit that private parties do bad things. It’s kind of foolish. Yes, JP Morgan and Goldman are pretty close to evil. So what? Prosecute them. It doesn’t change the fact of all that the Fed and the U.S. gov’t did wrong. Anyway, I sort of think that the Ron Paul republicans who either sit it out or vote libertarian will be about equal the democrats who have some actual principles and who cannot stomach a vote for Barack “Kill List” Obama.

The only reason I didn’t vote for Johnson was that, given that he had no realistic chance (tho a Gary Johnson/Ron Paul ticket might have had a chance!), I felt it was more important to use my vote to (attempt to) oust Obama, because after a second Obama term, there may BE no America for ANYONE to lead.

I do think it’s time for the states that still produce something to secede, and we’ll need a leader like Johnson. So, Mr.Johnson, don’t go away just yet…